


Cryptids, Demons, and Witchcraft: Oh My!

by I_am_a_Ruin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Betrayal, Blood and Gore, Demon Deals, Demonic Possession, Demons, Keith gets possessed and everyone takes way too long to notice, Loner Keith, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining Keith (Voltron), but very strange happenings, cryptid hunter Keith Kogane, kind of nightvale-esque sort of town?, least of all the author, nobody knows what's going on, nobody will die I promise right now, normal people, or gravity falls-esque?, pining lance, suffocation, that sort of craziness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 03:26:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14907416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_a_Ruin/pseuds/I_am_a_Ruin
Summary: A demon takes advantage of Keith's weakened state to make a deal. When Keith falls for it, he's left to hope someone can get him out of this mess before it's too late.Lance is trying to get over a broken heart and confusing crush when his life goes to hell.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I've been watching a ton of Gravity Falls and CMVs and just couldn't get this idea out of my head. So here's a prologue for you all. The first chapter will be out shortly. If this gets decent feedback, I'll continue.  
> If it doesn't... I'll probably continue it anyways cuz I've fallen in love with this story idea.

There was a buzz in the air that was driving him crazy. Keith had felt it under the surface of everything for weeks now with seemingly no source. It was just this energy that set him on edge, kept his hair on end, and left him wide awake. Caffeine had been pumped through his body more often than it was given a reprieve. He had to find out what was going on. He had to, if just for the sake of his sanity. 

Keith pinched the bridge of his nose in a desperate attempt to stave off a throbbing migraine and give his eyes a little rest. The pictures were starting to blur with how hard he had been staring at them. It didn’t matter that he could hardly see them because they were, at this point, burned on the back of his eyelids. His notes and theoretical connections had become almost inconsequential. He wasn’t likely to forget any time soon. Not that it stopped him from staring, searching for anything he could have missed. There had to be  _ something  _ behind all the strange occurrences lately. 

The Sun didn’t just double on its own. Keith wasn’t crazy. Just because he was the only one nearby that had seen it, didn’t mean anything. He had been in contact with tons of travellers claiming to have seen the same. There  _ was  _ odd sorts of mischief going on, and he’d prove it. That’d show his dumbass school, his ignorant teachers, and snobby classmates. He didn’t need them anyways. He didn’t need anyone. He’d get to the bottom of all this and then he would have everything he ever wanted. 

Keith just needed a nap so badly... However, there was still that persistent thrum under his skin, just below the notice of others in every single object, even his bed. It had no stable rhythm or pattern. It made as little sense as everything else as of late. 

He shook his head and leaned back in to gaze at this picture. His camera hadn’t caught the dual Suns, but that was no matter. There was something off about this picture. If he could just place it, he’d be one step closer to solving this mess.

The static in his ears grew louder and louder until it was a cacophony of  noise. For a moment, he almost believed he truly was going mad, clutching his head in pain as he stumbled into his wall and knocked down some of the papers. Where his shoulder made contact with the wall, the drumbeat settled there, the buzz also migrating to focus on that point. The energy in the air intensified into a crackling heat, shimmering and almost a mirage. That shimmer grew brighter until it was a glowing ball of light on the wall. In a sudden burst of white-hot light, a woman appeared. The energy in the room dispersed with the force, cracking the protective case around Keith’s candle and somehow putting the fire out in a rush. 

He fell backwards in shock, losing his balance and landing on his ass. He could only stare dumbfounded upwards at this disheveled woman. She wore a thick byzantium cloak shielding most of her face despite the heavy summer heat of the surrounding desert and clumps of tangled, filthy, white hair hanging limply out of the hood. Gold symbols decorated the cloak in a familiar pattern. Keith recognized them as some burn marks that had turned up where a peculiar occurrence had happened. Was  _ this  _ ragged woman behind all of it? 

The lavender aura around her dimmed just as quickly as she appeared, leaving Keith almost incapable of seeing her due to the bright spots in his vision. 

“Sorry it took me so long to come to your aide. I would have been here sooner, but you have no idea the kind of energy it took to get here. I almost won’t be able to help you, so let’s keep this quick.” the woman hummed. 

Her voice was raspy like the local coven members. On a normal basis, just the suspicion alone that she’d been screwing with iffy plant life would have made Keith extremely wary and doubtful of her. However, she had just snapped into existence before him so he decided she had some reliability at least in the magical department. “Why… What do you intend to help me with?” he asked carefully, slowly pushing himself to his feet. Exhaustion really was wearing on him, making him sway unsteadily once he was standing. 

“You want answers. All sorts of them. About this town, about your  _ mom,  _ if maybe what you see is connected to her… Well, I’ve got them.” He could see the white flash of a smirk on her face just below the shadow of her hood.

“How do you possibly know-” Keith began to question, before a flicker, a snap of red light popped in the air. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but she definitely didn’t like being questioned.

“Trust me, kid. There’s a lot I know. I’d prove it to you, but then I’d be of no use to you. And I’d much rather cut to the chase. You get your answers. Wouldn’t you like that?”

He raised his eyebrows, still unsure. There was more to this. There had to be. No one would give something like that away for free. And she didn’t really strike him as generous, not when one half of a question made her testy. “In exchange for what?”

She waved her grey hand impatiently at him, “It’s not much,” with a snap of her fingers, an image of a poorly made sock puppet like that of the children’s weekly shows appeared glowing with a soft pink light. “I just need a teensy little puppet.” 

“What for?” 

Her hand struck through the revolving image. “Well, that’s my business. So tell me, do we have a deal?”

Keith found his eyes glued to her hand. There was something in his brain trying to come to life, gain a form, but weariness kept it buried. He slowly raised his own hand. “I get you a puppet and you’ll give me answers? Answers to all of my questions?” 

“For something so small, I think ten questions should suffice, don’t you?” If he had been paying any attention, maybe that twisting smirk, the glint of malice in her gleaming yellow eyes peering from the black depths of her cloak would have warned him. He wasn’t.

His hand eagerly made contact with hers and that flash of energy gathered again, melding them together with a ring of rose-colored fire. Everything was so intense, he almost thought his body would combust. Then the fire was gone and his hand was released, leaving a harsh, sharp smoke in its wake. Its aroma reminded him of the sickly sweet blackthorn from his lessons, the scent bordering on the heady, rotting one of the hawthorn. Before he could even think about what he had just done, the woman collapsed in a heap on the ground, ash stirring up from the now empty cloak and carried out the window on some unidentified wind. Then his mind felt full, radically more painful than anything he had to felt in his whole life. There were screaming, haunting cries on the air that might have been his own. 

Keith’s body was moving, but not of his accord. There was no more sound from his lips, despite his vehement mental protests to his own actions. His hands tore all his hard work from the walls, every leaflet, note, and image and cast everything into the now-burning fireplace. He had not lit a fire and the last thing he wanted was to be destroying all of this. His consciousness felt subdued, as though his mind was caught in some kind of thick, dizzying, confounding molasses swirling around his head. 

A frightening cackle echoed alongside his own thoughts and it was certainly not anything that sounded like himself. It was reminiscent of the woman, but it had a more sinister tone.  _ Thanks for being my puppet, kid. _


	2. Finding Shiro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly unbeta'd, but I promise this story will get better. I just need time to set up to the good stuff. And I was under a time crunch today.

“Alright, everybody!” Lance called after his friends in hopes they would wait up for him long enough to hear his idea.

Pidge was so engrossed in his book that Hunk had to yank on the kid’s arm to get him to stop walking. The pair of them looked behind themselves to watch Lance run to catch up. Lance clapped Hunk’s shoulder in thanks as he caught his breath.

“So I was thinking, maybe we could go to my house and hang or something?”

Pidge rolled his eyes. “I’m busy, Lance.” 

Lance folded his arms over his chest in a pout, “Oh, come on! We have project, and we could work on it together today. Surely you aren’t too busy for schoolwork.”

Pidge just snorted with a head shake, “Please, you aren’t going to work on that project at all. You just want to talk about Allura. I’m not helping you get a girlfriend.”

Lance decided not to tell him he’d already burned that bridge. Pidge would just laugh at him and gloat. “You’re just a buzzkill. Careful, if you go off on your own all the time, you’ll end up just like crazytown.”

Hunk raised his eyebrows, “Who?”

“Keith? The kid that got expelled last month? After he got kicked out, he totally fell off the map. He was a loner too, Pidge.” Lance explained, elbowing his friend in the side.

“I am not a loner!” Pidge exclaimed, sounding a little offended.

“Pfft, prove it then. Because you have never once agreed to hang out.”

“Just because I don’t want to goof off with you two does not make me a loner.” 

Hunk looked hurt immediately. “Wow, I thought we were friends, Pidge.”

Pidge’s eyes went all wide and distracted, focusing in on something over Lance’s shoulder. “Shut up. Look at that!” 

Lance and Hunk turned around and scanned for some bizarre sight. Nothing seemed out of sorts. Lance looked over his shoulder at Pidge, “You know, Keith claimed to see things no one else did.”

Pidge glared daggers and just grabbed Hunk by the shirt sleeve. The pair took off running leaving Lance to keep up. Pidge was tiny, but damn could that boy run. They were dragged into the woods and as they approached, Lance began to see a rather abnormal light. It wasn’t so much a light anymore, having dimmed to a residue green bubble of brightness around the surrounding area. As they drew closer, Lance could hear a fizzing noise in his ears. A boy was collapsed on the ground, looking badly beaten up. A dark scar ran across the bridge of his nose and his right arm was soaked in crimson blood. Pidge released his hold on Hunk’s sleeve and fell to the ground before the boy. 

“Shiro!” After shaking failed to wake him, Pidge hacked the sleeve off the guy’s bloodied arm with a dagger he produced from his jacket pocket and checked the arm for injuries. “Lance I need you to tear a strip of your shirt away with this,” the dagger was thrown to Lance’s feet.

He stared down at the blade. “Do you normally keep weapons on you, or is this just a lucky coincidence?” 

Pidge didn’t spare him a glance, already trying to apply pressure to the nasty-looking gash on Shiro’s arm. Lance sighed and got to work destroying one of his favorite shirts. It was for a good cause. Shiro was sort of infamous around town. Lance couldn’t really bring himself to mind helping him.

Pidge tied the fabric tightly above the tip of the gash. “Hunk, help me. We have to get him back in town.”

Hunk frowned, clearly wanting to argue, but threw his hands up in defeat. The three of them managed to lift Shiro and made slow progress in carrying him out of the woods. 

“How do you-you think… he got all the way out here?” Lance asked, gasping for breath. His arms were burning from the effort.

Nobody had any answers. When they got him to the hospital, thankfully quite close to the woods, the staff had tons of questions too. Each of them did their best to answer them, though Pidge was short with everyone, trying to get permission to see Shiro. The nurses encouraged them to head home, but Pidge wouldn’t hear of it. The kid sure was stubborn, insisting on staying until he got to see Shiro and talk to him. 

Lance wasn’t sure how long they had been sitting in the waiting room when Keith showed up. Long enough for Hunk to have passed out, but Hunk could fall asleep standing up so it wasn’t a good gauge of time passage. Lance sighed, standing up to approach him. Lance may not be too fond of the guy, but Shiro was his brother. The least Lance could do was tell him what happened.

“Hey, we’re the ones that found your brother. He didn’t look so good, but I think he’s going to be okay.” Lance informed him quietly, hoping to not wake Hunk.

Keith blinked blankly at him for a few moments, eyes strangely glassy. “Yeah.” 

“Are you feeling okay, dude?” Lance found himself asking unwillingly. 

Keith nodded, shaking himself. “Yeah, no. I’m great. Just, in shock I guess. Thanks for getting… Shiro help.” 

Keith sat down with the group and Lance decided very quickly Keith definitely wasn’t okay. He looked like he hadn’t slept in the month he’d been out of school and had been roughed up on his way to the hospital. His too-long hair was ungroomed and eyes abnormally bright, almost feverish. That’s when Lance noticed the wounds peeking out from Keith’s jacket sleeves. They were puckered little circles, too evenly spaced to have been made individually. Each row of them seemed random and very fresh. It almost looked like Keith had been jamming a fork into his arm. What the hell?

Before Lance could bother contemplating asking about that, a doctor appeared. “Are any of you family of Takashi Shirogane?”

Keith nodded. “Yeah, I’m his brother.”

The doctor talked to Keith in hushed tones for several moments before leaving. Pidge appeared in the doctor’s place almost instantly, getting in Keith’s face. “So can we see Shiro because I need to talk to him!”

“I’m sorry. The doctor said family only.” Keith shrugged. Lance was very perturbed by how little Keith seemed to care about Pidge’s request. Lance hated Keith out of pure competitive rules, but Keith had never been an actual tool before.

“Listen, okay. I have to see him. He might know about my brother. You of all people have to understand how worried I am. I have to talk to him before the school covers-” Pidge began. 

Keith sighed. “I’ll try to talk to the doctors about changing his status. But, it will cost you.”

Pidge’s jaw dropped and Lance didn’t blame him. Was this guy for real? “It will  _ cost  _ me?”

“You said you’re desperate, right? If you want to talk to my brother, your friend has to go on a date with me. Just one little date.” Keith’s disturbing violet eyes met Lance’s. Lance wanted to punch him in the face. Frankly, Lance used to have serious respect for Kogane because he was so smart. Sure, Lance was extremely envious, but Keith had always been a decent person. Apparently, Lance didn’t know him well enough. 

Pidge turned on heel, “Lance.”

He couldn’t believe this was happening. Two minutes ago, Lance hadn’t even known Pidge had a brother and now he was expected to date a boy for him? Pidge was his friend though. Keith might be a total ass, but if this was what had to be done… “Well, I can’t say I blame him for wanting to date me. Sure, dude. But only if Pidge gets long enough to get answers, okay?”

Keith smirked. “Deal. I’ll be right back. And hey, thanks for getting Shiro out of there, I really appreciate it.”

As soon as Keith was gone, Hunk sat up. Lance hadn’t even noticed he was awake. “What was with that guy? Did you see his arms? Lance, you can’t go on a date with him. You don’t even like boys.”

Lance was tempted to laugh, but held it in. Pidge cut in, engulfing Lance in a hug. “Thank you!”

“Yeah, yeah. You owe me though.”

****

Keith still wasn’t sure what the demon wanted and he only had ten questions so he was holding off until he was certain there wasn’t some way out of answering each one. What he did know is none of his prior research into possession had prepared him for this. Everytime the demon did something to harm his body, Keith felt it even though the demon seemed completely unbothered. He might even use the word delighted if the dialogue running alongside his own muted screams of pain was anything to go by.

He had never known so many things could be used as a weapon. The demon was creative, Keith had to admit.

Drawers, forks, pushpins, staplers, even his own nails were used against him. Anything with some kind of force or minutely sharp edge made Keith flinch internally. Which, of course, only egged the demon on. 

It had been a week and Keith still didn’t have a name to call the thing living inside his head. It didn’t seem important enough to waste a question he had traded just about everything for. 

However, the demon definitely wanted to make Keith’s life hell. It was like the demon heard Keith’s thoughts of how pretty this boy was and just decided to go for it to fuck with Keith. Actually, it wasn’t  _ like  _ anything. That’s exactly what the demon was doing. 

_ Oh, for fuck’s sake. Just call me Haggar already, kid. You’re driving me crazy calling me a demon all the time. _

Apparently every thought he had was also being broadcasted. Grand. He wasn’t sure what else he expected. 

Lance was looking at him like he was the biggest asshole in the world, which he supposed he was technically being. It just wasn’t Keith’s call this time. Haggar chuckled at that, whispering all kinds of things she had planned for Lance. 

Note to those looking to make a deal with a demon: don’t let them know you’ve ever remotely found someone attractive. 

Keith wanted very badly to run away, but he wasn’t exactly in control in any part of his body, let alone his legs. Haggar got Lance talking without a problem, blaming Keith’s earlier bad attitude on lack of sleep. Lance ate it up, especially because Keith sort of had the biggest dark circles under any eye known to man.

“I just… I’ve wanted to date you since we started school this year and I could just never work up the nerve to ask. I really am sorry for my behavior.” Haggar was saying. And if Lance, or anyone had known Keith better, this bullshit would never had been bought. As it was, Keith had screwed himself over. 

_ Shut up, you lying scum,  _ Keith chanted as loudly as he could manage.

_ Your chatter isn’t going to do this boy any good, kid. I’m going to have him strung up by his pretty neck by the end of this week, just you watch,  _ Haggar hissed menacingly. 

“-you still have to apologize to my friends after this, though.” Lance shrugged, taking a sip from his soda.

“Of course. Did your friend get any information about her brother?” Haggar inquired, acting all syrupy innocent. Keith wanted to punch her -himself?- in the face.

“Pidge is guy, Keith.” Lance snorted with a shake of his head. “And yeah. Thanks for letting him talk to Shiro. Your brother clearly went through something. Has he talked about it at all yet?”

Haggar nodded slowly, “It’s mostly gibberish though.”

That was a blatant lie to work on discrediting everything Shiro had said. Keith had seen evidence of it himself, and Shiro was just backing him up. 

Shiro had talked of water spirits and dark magic and Keith wanted badly to go out exploring those woods to find some sign of these things. The fact that Haggar was trying to call Shiro insane definitely pointed signs to her being somehow mixed up in all this madness. But what did she want?

_ Oh that’s easy, kid. I want to take over this town, and destroy it. Nine questions left.  _

**Author's Note:**

> comments are very much appreciated, especially in order to continue improving my writing. Thank you all for reading!
> 
> (and if anyone wants to make fanart for this, please hit me up!!!)


End file.
